


what if this storm ends?

by chasingforeverandaday



Series: forest love, forest lass [5]
Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Eventual Happy Ending, F/M, Introspection, because technically this cuts off before shit gets totally sorted, probably
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-14
Updated: 2020-01-14
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:07:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22258432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chasingforeverandaday/pseuds/chasingforeverandaday
Summary: A Storm Lord rides for his ancestral home where a She-Wolf waits less than patiently.Or: Gendry mopes his way down to Storm's End while Arya is given far too much time to panic about her future.
Relationships: Arya Stark/Gendry Waters
Series: forest love, forest lass [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1353406
Comments: 19
Kudos: 125





	what if this storm ends?

**Author's Note:**

> Born of an abandoned version of an entirely different story, here's another version of the classic "Arya and Gendry find each other after King's Landing falls" featuring cryptic Bran for approximately three sentences, pacing Arya, and wet, grumpy Gendry. 
> 
> The title comes from "The Lightning Strike" because sometimes I just feel like being a basic bitch.

Exhausted from his long trek south, damp to his bones, and heart-sore, Gendry Baratheon enters the lands of his forefathers on a dark and rainy day. The skies are swirling with shades of gray,  _ just like her eyes _ he thinks, shaking his head to clear it of intruding thoughts. The forests are dripping, the ground is closer to muck than it is to dirt, and angry clouds fill the sky as far as his tired eyes can see. 

He leads his small party on, following the directions of the last innkeep he’d met, to travel straight through the woods until he reached his destination. One of the grizzled Northmen that Lady Sansa had sent with him had grumbled under his breath about taking directions from a fool, but Gendry hadn’t cared to determine if he meant the innkeep or himself, the upstart bastard lord. 

Lord. It was never something he’d dreamed of, unlike most of the other Flea Bottom bastards he’d grown up with. Never felt the need to find the man who made him, that he’d not cared a shit for his mother was enough proof that Gendry didn’t need him. Mostly he’d just wanted a home, somewhere to lay his head at night, mayhaps a family to share it with one day. But he’d fucked much of that up in a single go. Gotten drunk on having been given a name, on surviving the Long Night, on the plentiful ale. That Arya was there and she felt something for him and she wanted him, well it drove him momentarily mad. By the time he stopped feeling completely sorry for himself and realized just how badly he’d screwed up, she was gone.

And that was the thing wasn’t it? She was gone. Vanished down the King’s Road with the Hound of all people. The woman he loved, because he did love her, even if telling her so was not one of his prouder moments, was out of his reach. Oh, he’d considered charging after her, following her wherever she wanted to go, but her family pulled him back. 

Lady Sansa insisted that he stay, at least until the Dragon Queen left for Dragonstone. Something in her eyes made him agree, a well-hidden spark of fear he only recognized because he knew her sister’s so well. He kept to the background, focusing on the repairs of Winterfell rather than the increasingly tense meetings the queen held for hours in the War Room. Lord Tyrion once tried to convince him to join them, citing his new lordship as a reason and then his inner knowledge of King’s Landing after his first refusal. Gendry had no head for war tactics, merely a talent for battle he explained. The Lannister had smirked almost sadly and called him his father’s true son.

Days later as he was packing to leave, Lady Sansa appeared and requested he follow her to the Godswood to meet with her brother. Confused, as Jon had surely gone with Queen Daenerys, he allowed himself to be directed to the Starks’ most holy place, finding the Lord Bran waiting at the base of the weirwood. Gendry knew little of what Bran was like now, for Arya had spoken of a young dreamer planning on a life of adventure and knighthood who seemed an entirely different person from the one sitting before him. The pale boy swathed in furs was unnaturally still, his voice emotionless as he told Gendry to travel south to Storm’s End, to claim his birthright rather than follow Arya to King’s Landing. 

Bran’s pronouncement had brought panic and despair, for he had been telling nothing but the truth when he’d told Arya that nothing mattered to him if she wasn’t at his side. But when her brother’s cold gray eyes turned his way, all he could do was swallow and nod his agreement wordlessly. Turning around, he was almost out of the clearing when Bran’s parting words reached his ears.

“I have a son, you have a daughter; we’ll join our houses.”

“My lord, what-”

“Your father once told Ned Stark that. Sometimes fate takes a while, but destiny will always find its way.” Unable to form a response, he watched as Lady Sansa stepped up behind her brother’s wheeled chair, a secretive smile on her face as she grasped the handles. She looked up at him, eyebrow raised, daring him to question her brother’s decree. With a sigh, he’d made his way back to the stables, only to find a guard of Stark men who had been ordered to accompany him south to his holdings. It seemed the lady had already known where he was to go before he did. 

And now here he sat on his horse, soaked and shivering in the icy winter rain of the Stormlands, atop the crest of a hill. From his vantage point, he could just make out the imposing drum tower he would apparently be calling his home. Determined to make it by nightfall, Gendry urged on his men as he bit back the growing dread at marching towards a future he desperately hoped would not end before it had a chance to begin. 

He’d seen the billowing smoke rise from the city he used to call home, knew something had happened within the walls of King’s Landing, though what exactly that was, he did not know. He could only pray that Arya had managed to survive and that one day he would see her again.

* * *

Arya paced back and forth, back and forth, back and forth across the hearth in the Lord’s solar of Storm’s End. She should have been down there, should be meeting him in the yard, should throw her arms around his neck and feel his heartbeat with her own fingers, but she can’t. She can’t find a way to face him yet, face his questions and her own actions in front of all the people looking to welcome the new Storm Lord home, so she had fled to the privacy of this room the moment she’d been told there were Baratheon banners approaching from the trees. 

So here she was, the woman who killed the Night King, who braved death and beat it head on, hiding from the man she loved in his own castle. She’d arrived only days ago, met with a passive aggressiveness from the guards that would have made Sansa proud until she’d named herself Arya Stark. Then she’d been rushed into the guest chambers to be given a hot bath, warm food, clean clothes, and the softest bed she’d ever had the pleasure of collapsing into. Once she’d woken and crept from the room, she’d been accosted by the maester and castellan, both interrogating her about the man they were expecting any day now, Lord Baratheon. 

It was at that point when she realized they assumed she was someone important to Gendry, as Lord Baratheon’s betrothed or a trusted ally, something more than just the girl who broke his heart when she turned him down. And before she could open her mouth to try and dissuade them from the notion, they mentioned a letter from Sansa, an explanation, an introduction, and a set of expectations all in one. She’d been given her own message from her siblings and directed to this solar to read it alone.

The letter was short, to the point; Sansa’s swirling script revealing the biting tone she’d grown into over their years apart. After a less than subtle rebuke of Arya’s sudden disappearance from their home, it briefly explained she was sending Gendry south, that they’d managed to keep him from the war party with Jon and the dragon queen. Then it seemed Bran had taken over, for the words of the shaking, spiky hand that wished her well and said he expected to see all of them once it was over were just as frustratingly vague as none but her brother could be. Sansa had signed it, but not before reminding Arya that she would always have a home in Winterfell should she ever need it.

Arya had read and reread the letter until she knew the words by heart, trying to determine what precisely what her siblings were saying. She took it as a blessing to remain south, to make her own future here; that somehow they both knew what Gendry meant to her, even if she’d never told them herself. 

And so she stayed at Storm’s End, nursing her injuries from the sack and stewing in her own thoughts as she waited for Gendry to come. And this was so far from what she’d expected of her life, to be stuck with nothing to do but wait for a dashing lord to arrive and fix all of her problems. It was driving her mad with anxiety, this helplessness and stagnation.

But how to explain all of these feelings inside of her to him? Gendry, no matter how many times she called him stupid, was no idiot. He was passionate and blunt, with no patience for the mind games so prevalent in highborn society. So he’d had no idea what that proposal had meant for her, hadn’t understood just what he’d been asking her when he’s wanted her to be his lady. And maybe neither had she. Growing up among the highborn had painted a very bleak picture of marriage for her, one she wasn’t sure she would survive. All she could see was the look on her father’s face when he told her of all the wonderful things her sons would do, things that she never could simply because she was a girl, or Cersei forced to sit next to her husband as he flaunted his infidelities before her very eyes. But that wasn’t what he was offering to her.

Because yes, she knew Gendry was different from any man she’d ever met, she trusted him more than perhaps anyone else in the world, and she loved him. That wasn’t even calling into question the fact that she knew he would never be unfaithful to her, for he was nothing like Robert Baratheon in anything but looks and ability to swing a hammer. More than anything, she wanted him to be her family, just as she’d asked so long ago in that cave when she couldn’t comprehend what she was asking him to do. Looking back, she can see the parallels and can only hope that their third chance would be the one to stick.

Then the door opened and he was pushed through and her time alone came to an abrupt end. Silence reigned as the pair of them took each other in. Staring into his blue eyes from across the room, relief settled over her like a warm blanket. He was alive and standing in front of her with the most adorably confused look on his face, the same expression he’d worn just before she kissed him for the first time in Winterfell. They had an opportunity to talk, to decide if what they had was worth all the pain and tears that sorting out their history would undoubtedly bring. She thought he was.

Squaring her shoulders, she approached him gently, reaching out a single hand to rest on his cheek. “Hello, Gendry.”

“Arya?”


End file.
